Diversities in Families Ch 7

Copyright ©2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
All rights reserved.
Diversity in Families, Ninth Edition
Maxine Baca Zinn • D. Stanley Eitzen • Barbara Wells
Diversity In Families
Chapter Seven
The Social Construction
of Intimacy
NINTH EDITION

Chapter Seven Overview
• Heterosexual Courtship and Mate
Selection
• Changing Sexual Behavior
• Differentiated Forms of Intimacy
• Same Sex Orientation and Intimacy

Intimacy in Social Context
• Intimacy is shaped by society. Major
social changes have influenced intimate
relationships.
• People make decisions about intimate
relationships in a social context.
• The messages we get from the larger
society are mixed.

• Sociological approach in examining intimacy has
several assumptions:
- We experience intimacy at the micro level, yet
intimate relations are shaped and given meaning by
macro level forces.
- Human sexuality is not simply a biological drive but is
formed by the social system and controlled by those
in power.
- Particular sexual practices are enforced by the
dominant society.

• Over the past several decades a new emphasis
on relationships and sexuality has emerged to
create an “intimacy revolution” (Whyte, 1990).
• Not only are macro level forces implicated in the
contemporary need for intimacy, they may also
shape our mate selection decisions.
• Some connect the rise of interracial and same
sex relationships in recent decades to more
social independence for young people.

• We have separated our private selves
from the public self that we display for
others, and this separation has created a
need for intimacy.
• Intimate relationships permit people to be
themselves without being judged.
• In this strive for intimacy we expect our
intimate partner to be all things for us.

Heterosexual Courtship
• While mate selection used to involve family and
community, it is today a more independent
orientation.
• Parents have less control over young adult’s
decisions about mate selection.
• All of these things have changed in the past few
decades to allow young people more choices:
the importance of education, the decline of Rural
America, the lure of cities, changing work
patterns, and more freedom for women.

• By the 1920’s couples started to go out on
“dates” far from their parent’s supervision.
• The initiation of dates shifted from a girl allowing
a boy to “come calling” at her parent’s house, to
a boy asking a girl out on a date. Girls did not
ask boys because at the time girls were still
considered second class citizens.
• By the middle of the 20th century “going steady”
was common in high school and college.

• Fewer teens date now than in the past.
• Teen dating is associated with both
positive and negative consequences.
• Adolescents typically engage in “group
dating” in the 21st Century.
• Online dating is also a significant
development in contemporary mate
selection.

Figure 7.1
Percentage of 8th
, 10th
, and 12th
Grade Students Who Date Frequently,
by Grade, Selected Years 1976-2006
Note: Frequent dating is used here to describe youth who report going out on one or more dates each week.
Source: Child Trends, “Dating.” Child Trends DataBank, 2007. Online: http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/pdf/73_PDF.

• Variations in Dating Practices:
- Gender – Traditional gender role expectations still
structure interactions, however the sexual double
standard has weakened.
- Class – Dating and courtship patterns vary by social
class.
- Race – Interracial relationships are likely to form in
integrated settings such as the military, colleges and
universities, and metropolitan areas.

Heterosexual Mate Selection
• Factors in Mate Selection:
- Legal – Legal regulations prohibit marriage between
close relatives – states vary on what they consider
“close”.
- Homogamy means that people tend to marry others
who are very similar to them in race, religion,
ethnicity, and social class.
- Hypogamy involves moving upward in social class
through marriage.
- Hypergamy involves marrying downward in social
class.

• Qualities women and men think are
important in selecting a mate (1996):
- Mutual attraction; love
- Dependable character
- Emotional stability and maturity
- Perhaps now partners are looking for a
partner who is successful in the labor market.

• Structural Influences:
- Availability of marriageable partners
- Variety of group affiliations – varied affiliations
with different groups provide opportunities to
meet and stay in contact with dissimilar
others.
 People may marry outside their social group
because of their multiple and interwoven group
affiliations.

• Schools can play a major part in finding a
potential mate. High school and then college
further narrows choices of mates. Since college
attendance is strongly associated with parent’s
socioeconomic status, it is likely that college
students will choose someone similar to marry
because that is who is available.
• Despite our belief that who we marry is a
personal choice, structural influences remain
strong in our mate selection.

Changing Sexual Behavior
• The sociology of sexuality is an emerging area
of research that examines how society shapes
the expression of sexual desire through cultural
images and social institutions.
• The Social Constructionist approach examines
the underlying social motivations and
mechanisms that shape human social
relationships and society.

• The tenants of Social Construction theory
are:
- Human sexuality varies across time, space
and the life of any individual.
- Although sexuality is the site of our most
intimate experiences, it is socially controlled
and bound up with the basic inequalities that
configure the structure of society – namely
class, race and gender.

• Biology alone does not determine human
sexuality.
• Activities condemned in one society may be
encouraged in another, so sexuality is not all
about biology.
• Social institutions channel and direct sexual
behavior according to what is defined as socially
acceptable or “normal”.

Enlarging the Sexuality Frame
• Homosexuality and Heterosexuality are social
constructs, both at the macro level where society
determines what same sex relationships means,
and at the micro level where individuals obtain
their sexual identity.
• The terms sexual identity and sexual orientation
refers to how people classify themselves.
• Sexual identity and sexual behavior may differ.

Enlarging the Sexuality Frame
• There is debate about whether homosexuality
has genetic or social origins – is it inborn or
shaped by experiences?
• Despite whether there is biological evidence for
sexual orientation – it is always a social identity
as well.
• Sexual orientations are not only a matter of
genital activity, but also social creations with
norms and values about sexuality.

The Sexual Revolution
• From a family-centered reproductive system in
colonial days to romantic sexuality in the 19th
century.
• By the 1920s, sexuality became a major source
of identity and self-discovery.
• In modern times, sexuality is highly
commercialized and is supposed to provide
individual identity and happiness apart from
reproduction.

The Sexual Revolution
• Advertising and entertainment media have
been important forces contributing to
sexual permissiveness.
• Sex sells almost anything today!
• The media’s fixation on sex has served to
involve children and youth earlier and
earlier in thinking about sex and sexual
activity.

Scientific Research on Sexuality
• National survey’s have found substantial
changes in women’s sexual behavior over the
past decades, but smaller and significant
changes in men’s sexual behavior.
• The most valuable part of the new survey’s on
sexuality is that they look at sexuality in a social
context.
• People’s sexual choices are shaped by the
social networks in which they operate.

• National Health and Social Life Survey found:
- Adultery is the exception more than the rule.
- People in the US are divided into three groups
according to how often they have sex: 1/3 have sex
twice a week or more; 1/3 have sex a few times a
month; and 1/3 a few times a year.
- The incidence of homosexuality is low. 2.6 percent of
men and 1.4 percent of women report a homosexual
identity.
- Married couples have sex the most.

• Of course, questions still remain about whether
people tell the truth about their sexual behaviors.
• The Global Study of Sexual Attitudes and
Behaviors is the newest research on sexuality:
- Surveyed 27,500 middle and older adults in 29
countries on the subject of the physical and emotional
qualities of their sex lives.
- The highest levels of sexual well being are found in
western countries where gender equality is the
highest.

AIDS
• The number of new U.S. cases has risen every
year since 2001.
• Because the most common means of HIV
transmission is male to male sexual contact, the
majority of new AIDS cases involve men.
• In 2004, 70% of women who were diagnosed
with AIDS were infected through heterosexual
contact.
• HIV has increasingly become a disease of color
with African American men being diagnosed at a
rate 7 times that of White men.

Teen Sexuality
• Adolescents today have more sexual freedom
than did the preceding generations – they have
become sexually active earlier than their
parents.
• Approximately 50% of teenagers have had
sexual intercourse by the time they finish high
school – the average age tends to be around 17.
• U.S. has the highest rates of teenage
pregnancy.

Teen Sexuality
• The National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults
(Conducted by the Kaiser Foundation) finds that:
- Young people report considerable pressure to have sex.
- One third of adolescents have engaged in oral sex, but one in
five are unaware that oral sex can transmit sexually transmitted
disease.
- Many young people remain reluctant to discuss sexual health
issues with partners, family and health providers.
- Young people report that alcohol and drugs often play a
dangerous role in their sex lives.

Teen Sexuality
• Research finds that many teens who have never
had sexual intercourse are having oral sex,
which they do not count as “having sex”
(Peterson, 2000).
• Sex education in school is a controversial topic.
After 1996 Federal support for sex education
shifted from comprehensive sex education to
abstinence-only programming.
• As a long term strategy abstinence-only
programs seem a little unrealistic.

Figure 7.2
Estimated Impacts of Abstinence Education Program on Reported
Number of Sexual Partners
Source: Christopher Trenholm et al., “Impacts of Abstinence Education on Teen Sexual Activity, Risk of Pregnancy, and Risk of
Sexually Transmitted Diseases.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 27(2) (2008), p. 268.

Teenage Childbearing
• Over the past several decades teenage
childbearing has been seen as a major social
problem.
• Hispanics are now more likely to have a teen
pregnancy than African American teens.
• Early motherhood makes young women
vulnerable but not poor – most teen mothers
were poor before they got pregnant.

Differentiated Forms Of Intimacy
• His and Her Sex
- Women and men want and expect different
things from their intimate heterosexual
relationships.
- The model for male sexuality stresses
performance while the female model stresses
the emotional relationship.

His and Her Sex
• The expectations and styles of love vary by
gender:
- Men tend to be more casual about sex, they can
easily compartmentalize their feelings about love and
sex.
- Women view sex as a bonding experience.
- Some researches feel that sex is the main domain in
which male dominance is reinforced and female
subservience is reinforced.

Figure 7.4
Sex and Gender
Source: Judith Mackay, The Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behavior. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2000, p. 21.

His and Her Love
• Most people experience love at least once
in their lives.
• Men and women differ in their styles of
being in love as well as what they expect
from a loving relationship.
• Gendered love styles bolster men’s
dominance of women.

Same-Sex Orientation and Intimacy
• Variance from the norm of heterosexuality
was legally prohibited until 2003.
• Broad social support networks are missing
for gay and lesbian couples .
• Gender plays an important part in intimate
relationships, whether heterosexual or
gay.

Same-Sex Orientation and Intimacy
• The conditions under which sexuality and
love are experienced also vary with social
class, however differences are becoming
less clear.
• The NHSLS discovered that the lower
class inclined toward a no non-sense,
silent approach to sex vs. a self-
conscious, elaborate approach of higher
classes.

Social Class and Intimacy
• The experience of sexuality and love
varies by social class.
• While most people uphold the ideology of
love, there are class differences in
resources to sustain that ideal.
• Differences of color, culture, and ancestry
create clear sexual boundaries.

Intimacy and Race
• Throughout US history, powerful sexual
stereotypes have been central in creating and
sustaining the racial hierarchy.
• Despite the current trends in multiracial dating,
the sexual marketplace is still a minefield for
people of color.
• Their choice of intimate partners is defined by a
racial hierarchy that places Anglo/white people
at the top.

Contemporary Differences in Sexual
Behavior
• We know little about intimacy issues among
racial ethnics than we should, given that there
are more people of color in society than ever
before. There are two reasons:
- 1.) Stereotypes that portray racial-ethnic women and
men as more sexual and less capable than Whites of
controlling animal instincts. (Jagger and Rothenberg
1984:385).
- 2.) The prevailing ideology of love as a white, middle
class emotion.

Claiming Control of Intimacy
• Because intimacy is socially constructed, it
offers the possibility for agency, change
and growth.
• Sexuality has been separated from
reproduction.
• Women have a wider range of options.
• People throughout society are struggling
to transform intimate relationships and to
enhance pleasure and love.

Diversities in Families Ch 7

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